Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-10-08

teaching distinctively for children of for
eign parentage, concerning which DIR. Nc
Glynn recently entered vigorous protest
in his paper in the North American Rerier.
The work of the Christian churches in
America is the final potential influence the
essayist cites operating to Americanize
our aliens The Sunday-schools, he says,
encounter the warmest opposition of the
Socialistic population, because they fear
their influence as antagonistic to alienism
and anarchy.
While not disposed to underestimate any
of the arguments advanced by Mr.. Adams,
we are still convinced that there is ample
reason for more of watchfulness and vigor
on the part of true friends Of the American
system. AS Mr. Adams himself says, the
sectarian in place of the common school
would foster the worst form of caste spirit;
the greatest peril to our institutions is the
danger that we may neglect, if not abandon,
the principle of local elf-government; that
the perils besetting our system are such
as call for watchfulness, nerve, courage
and endurance; that the neglect of partici-
patton in government activity by the in
telligent classes is as much a menace as
the assaults of the ignorant, led astray by
socialism, anarchism and other doctrines
that tend to erect classes and define them
by the measure of reward secured by in
dustry, or lost by improvidence and vicious
habits
If We may pit one clergyman against
another in this debate, we must accord
greater weight to the views of Rev. DR..
Strong, than Rev. Mr.. Adams. The former
reviewing the same field, believes with
Matthew Arnold that america holds the
future" but he is alive to the perils visi
bic upon the national horizon. These are
manifest in the drift of the pauper and
criminal classes from Europe to America,
and out Of which spring the greater por-
ton Of our criminals. That immigration
IllTtSGd1IlAu ID luG JllOluSl Clllu illllSC Vi
Americans socialism, the doctor is as con-
WINGED as that Its tendency to cities gives
them largely their political complexion.
Unsolicited it carries foreign nationality as
distinc factor into our politics, and gives
US hyphenated Americanism, wholly for
eign to the fundamental idea Of the Ameri-
can Institution. DIR. Strong points to the
tendency of the European elements to con-
centrate as very dangerous, since such ag
gregation puts the strain in one direction
only upon our social and political fabric,
which would bear it more easily if dis
trib,lted. The local self-government, upon
which Mr. Adams dwells with such con-
tent DR.. Strong points out must needs, if
effectual for good, imply close relations
between man and man, measure of SYM
pathy and a community of ideas, all which
Europeanism opposes and which become
slower and slower in activity as the pro-
portion of Europeanism increases in
America
Mr.. Beecher having hopefully said of
this subject, that when the lion eats an OK
the OK becomes lion, leads DR.. Strong to
question the illustrative character Of the
parable. "The lion," he says, happily has
an instinct controlled by an unfailing law
which determines what and when, and
bow much he shall eat. If that instinct
should fail, and he should some day eat
badly diseased OK, or should very much
osereat, we might have on our hands
very sick lion. can even conceive that
under such conditions the ignoble OK
might slay the king of beasts.
Tie lion without being consulted as to
time, quantity or quality, is having the
food thrust down his throat, and his only
alternative is, digest Or die"